The mystery of a ‘non’ existing opposition party in the govt can be annoying to those who wanted the opposition to be more vocal and aggressive in speaking out on national issues. Some are very disturbed by the WP’s deliberate silence and inaction. It must be a conscious strategy to focus on local municipal issues, look after their wards well as nothing they say or do would affect national policies but more often than not be met with a tirade of robust and sometimes intimidating response. Thus, an avoidance strategy of keeping the nose clean and fight only during an election could be a well crafted and conscious position to take.
The PAP must be quite happy with the stand of the WP, lesser attack and lesser embarrassment. No need to constantly try to fix them. It is a kind of uncomfortable truce, I don’t rub you the wrong way, you don’t rub me the wrong way either. At the same time it may disappoint the supporters who expect more from the opposition party leading to a loss of confidence and desertion. The WP would definitely lose some points and some supporters from its inaction.
The inaction or non communication of the WP with the other opposition parties is causing much discomfort and apprehension and annoyance. Some are looking at this as aloofness, arrogance and incooperative and would make forming of an alliance against the PAP that much more difficult. The perception is like the rest of the opposition parties are inconsequential and does not matter and WP could go alone in its fight with the PAP.
Maybe the opposition parties should cool down and concentrate on what they want to do and how they would want to contest the next GE. It is unlikely that the WP could offer more than 30 good candidates at one go. Even if they could field 40, it would still leave more than 50 % of the seats available to the opposition parties. Actually other than the WP, there are only two or max three opposition parties that are worthy of contention and may win some seats, ie SDP, NSP and perhaps SPP. The rest can do whatever they want, make whatever noise they want, even contest in a 3 corner fight, they would not make a dent to these bigger parties.
Once the WP has made its claim on the SMCs and GRCs, the SDP and NSP could divide the leftover seats among themselves. There are enough seats for the rest to contest without fighting with the WP. There is no need to sweat the small stuff, to be angry because the WP did not want to talk to them or negotiate. Each party should simply put all its resources on the GRCs and SMCs they have chosen to contest and fight directly with the PAP without having to worry about the WP or vice versa.
The cake is big enough for all to share. There may be a few obvious weak GRCs, but really other than a handful, the rest of the GRCs are there for the taking. Many are borderline cases and for the opposition to take them is fair game. The invincibility is gone. The weight of a minister is now a liability.
Chua Chin Leng AKA Redbean
*The writer blogs at http://mysingaporenews.blogspot.com/